


before i save someone else

by murphysarc



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Episode Tag: s04e05 The Tinder Box, F/M, M/M, this is really short sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 08:51:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10082231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murphysarc/pseuds/murphysarc
Summary: post 4x05, murphy watches the Ark burn, remembering the first time he saw fire. slight murphamy.title from “save myself” by ed sheeran.





	

He should have gone with Emori. 

He should have gone with the girl made of flowers, the girl with lines of pain and suffering etched into her skin, the girl full of light that aches to spill over. It takes only seconds of her presence for his own light to press against his skin, creating cracks and ridges of sun - 

Except, she isn’t here, and the only light around illuminates the fire eating away the one place he’s ever called home. 

Tens of hundreds of thousands of scars litter Murphy’s skin. If asked, he couldn’t tell where each of them comes from, but there is one he will never forget. There is one, etched along the three fingers of his left hand, that still hurts when he thinks for too long. 

_ “Why did you do it, John?” his arresting officer asks. _

He didn’t  _ do _ anything except light the match the ended his own life, but if that’s a crime, then maybe he should be a criminal. 

Screams drown out his thoughts. Explosions rock the ship built to last a thousand years. Behind him, the sign reading  _ ‘arkadia’ _ falls to the ground and the screams grow louder-

_ “I did it for justice,” he replies _ .

For the second time in his life, Murphy stands alone, staring at a wall of flame that destroys everything in his life. For the second time in his life, Murphy is not upset. 

_ “You’ve got a twisted sense of justice, kid.” _

Last time, when he lit the match and burned three fingers on his left hand doing so, five guards came and took him away. He went willingly, tears streaming down his cheeks, fingers dead.

This time, it is Bellamy who grabs his hand and begins to pull him away. His fingers are numb - not from the scar - and while his grip tightens, his feet remain planted. 

“Murphy!” Bellamy yells, but his voice is lost. Murphy’s vision tunnels in on the flames, the same flames that long ago burned themselves into his memory - 

“Murphy, we’ve got to go!”

It takes him that long to move, but he does move, never taking the flames out of his sight. It isn’t until the two of them are past the point of danger that Bellamy pushes away from him. “What the hell was that!”

“It’s what I wanted,” is all he can say, but it’s enough that Bellamy stills, despite the carnage and screams around them. 

“Murphy-”

“This is what I wanted. This is what I thought would happen when I - this is what I wanted.”

Silence.

“I don’t want it anymore.”

Silence, and then, “I know.”

Bellamy knows, but it doesn’t stop the flames that linger at the corner of his vision, it doesn’t stop the screams, and it doesn’t stop the scar that flashes angrily on three fingers of his left hand.

It doesn’t stop the thought that he should have gone with Emori.

He hopes that she will always have flowers on her skin.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry this is so short and weird?? idk?? i just had a lot of feelings about murphy and fire


End file.
